In subtitles it's `Ooh-la-la'

September 14, 2003|By Allan Johnson, Tribune staff reporter.

Joe Vitello and his friends perform something of a ritual on Saturdays that has nothing to do with cartoons.

"On Saturday mornings I'll wake up and I'll turn the channels, and I'll see a [Univision dance party] show called `Caliente,' which I found out means `hot' in Spanish," said Vitello, 36. "Basically, there are girls there that are, like, half-naked. Which is kind of a good reason to watch."

Problem is, the Chicagoan doesn't speak much Spanish beyond "margarita, taco, burrito . . . that's about it," so he rarely knows much of what is going on with the barely clad women on the program . . . because plot is so important on a show like that.

Vitello said shows on Univision and Telemundo are "a little more aggressive than American TV" due to their high content of scantily clad women. But one is lost without a working knowledge of the language.

Well, at least one of the Spanish-language networks is working to fix that problem so English-only viewers won't miss out on key story lines.

Telemundo is providing English subtitles for two of its weeknight shows on a closed-caption TV frequency, according to Jim McNamara, the network's president and chief executive officer.

"Our idea," McNamara explained from his office in Miami, "is based on our belief that there is an audience out there of Spanish speakers who, let's say, are maybe second generation, third generation [people] who aren't quite as fluent as some of the more Spanish-dominant speakers, who may not be enjoying novelas these days because they might miss some of the subtleties of the language."

Telemundo experimented with English closed-captioning more than a year ago and found it so popular that it is widening that experiment with two new shows: "The Bachelorette"-like reality series "La Cenicienta" and the comic-romance telenovela "Amor Descarado," which are on weeknights at 6 and 7, respectively.

"We also believe that in addition to the English-dominant Hispanics, we know that there will also be some mainstream English speakers who have often flicked through Spanish-language programs and never understood what they were saying," McNamara said.

If Telemundo's experiment succeeds, it will include more programming, but spokesmen for Univision weren't available for comment.

That's a shame, because it seems Vitello and his buddies aren't the only ones whose eyes have been snagged by certain captivating images as they flit through the dial.

"The good thing is that on some of those types of shows, it makes it more inclusive to Americans," said Jeff Valdez, co-founder and co-chairman of Si TV, an emerging network that this fall will offer English-language programming for a Latino audience, speaking from New York City.

"The one thing I've heard a lot of Americans say," Valdez added, "is, `Oh, man, I was watching this Spanish channel, and these girls were really hot, and I couldn't understand a thing they were saying. . . .

"So I guess in this case, maybe they'll understand what the hot girls are saying. Is that a good thing? Well, we'll see."